An internet video newscast called the Voice of the Caliphate was broadcast for the first time on Monday, purporting to be a production of al-Qaida and featuring a presenter who wore a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.

The presenter, who said that the report would appear once a week, reported news about the Gaza Strip and Iraq and expressed happiness about recent hurricanes in the US. A copy of the Koran was placed by his right hand, and a rifle attached to a tripod pointed at the camera.

The origins of the broadcast could not be immediately verified. If the programme was indeed an al-Qaida production, it would mark a change by the group, with its use of the internet to spread its messages and propaganda. Direct dissemination would avoid editing or censorship by television networks, many of which usually air only excerpts of the group's statements and avoid showing gruesome images of killings.

The broadcast was first reported by the Italian AdnKronos news agency from Dubai. The 16-minute production was available on Italian newspaper websites.

The main segment recounted Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which the narrator proclaimed as a "great victory", while showing the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, walking and talking among celebrating compatriots. That was followed by a repeat of a pledge on September 14 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, to wage all-out war on Iraq's Shia Muslims. An image of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni Muslim, remained on the screen for about half of the broadcast.

The announcer reported that a group called the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed to have launched chemical-armed rockets at US forces in Baghdad. A video clip showed five rockets fired as an off-screen voice yelled "God is great" in Arabic.

A break followed, which previewed a film, Total Jihad, directed by Mousslim Mouwaheed. The advertisement was in English, suggesting that the target audience might be Muslims living in Britain and the US.

The final segment was about Hurricane Katrina. "The whole Muslim world was filled with joy" at the disaster, the presenter said, noting that President George Bush was "completely humiliated by his obvious incapacity to face the wrath of God, who battered New Orleans, city of homosexuals".

Caliphate refers to the 7th- and 8th-century Islamic empire that stretched from what is now the Middle East to the Atlantic, an achievement that Osama bin Laden has said Muslims should re-establish. According to credits following the broadcast, it was produced by the Global Islamic Media Front.